Agile Scrum: An Overview on Process and Planning

Agile retrospectives give the power to the team, where it belongs! ― Ben Linders

I

n 1993, when Jeff Sutherland developed the scrum process, he took the term scrum from an analogy put forth by Nonaka and Takeuchi in a 1986 study published in the Harvard Business Review. In that study, Nonaka and Takeuchi compared top-performing, cross-functional groupings to the scrum formation applied by Rugby teams. The sports term fundamentally means a closely-packed formation of players attempting to gain possession of the ball with their heads down.

What is Scrum?

By definition, scrum is a framework within which individuals can handle complicated adaptive problems, while creatively and productively delivering products of premium value. In simple words, it is redefining application development processes.

Scrum is:

Lightweight

Simple to understand

Difficult to master

This is because, the focal point of Scrum is continuous improvement, team input, scope flexibility, and delivering top quality products. Scrum complies with the Agile Manifesto and the 12 Agile Principles, which focuses on humans, communications, the product, as well as, flexibility.

SCRUM: AGILE WEB DEVELOPMENT MANIFESTO

Specifically, Scrum is a team-based approach to project management that adheres to the Agile Manifesto, since The Agile Manifesto is a purposely streamlined expression of the fundamental values of agile project management.

“We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work, we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.”– Agile Manifesto, Copyright 2001

This declaration may be freely copied in any form, but only in its entirety through this notice.

THE PRINCIPLES BEHIND SCRUM AND THE AGILE MANIFESTO

The 12 Agile-Principles are a set of directional concepts that facilitate project teams in deploying agile projects.

The team’s utmost priority is to live up to the customer’s expectations through the early and unceasing delivery of valuable software.

It is essential to welcome changing requirements, albeit late in development. The reason being that the agile web development processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.

Deliver working software regularly, from a few weeks to a few months, with a tendency for the shorter timescale.

Business people and developers ought to be working together every day throughout the project.

Construct projects around motivated individuals, and offer them the ecosystem and support they require while trusting them to get the job done.

The most efficiently effective method of relaying information to and within a team is a face-to-face conversation.

Working software is the principal measure of progress.

Agile processes encourage sustainable development. The developers, sponsors, as well as, the users, should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

Consistent attention to technical superiority and good design increases agility.

Simplicity — the art of augmenting the amount of work not done — is mandatory.

The best architectures, designs, and requirements, emerge from self-organizing teams.

At frequent intervals, the agile web development team should reflect on how to become more effective, to fine tune, and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

Deploying Scrum Methodology on a Project

Choose a Product Owner

The individual with the vision of what ought to be done. He or she writes the stories that are required, checks what is feasible, and stockpiles risk.

Compose your Team

It is feasible to keep your teams small (3 to 9 people) by clearly allocating the actual work to each member.

Choose a Scrum Master

The scrum master guides the team and assists in removing obstructions to the capacity of the team to deliver the product targets and deliverables. The scrum master is not a conventional project manager, or team leader, but acts as a conduit between the team and any distracting influences.

Create a Product Backlog

The product backlog consists of an orderly list of requirements that a scrum team keeps for a product. For example, it includes features, non-functional requirements, and bug fixes. In short, whatever is needed to deliver a valuable product successfully. The product owner commands the product backlog items (PBIs) based on indicators such as risk, dependencies, business value, and date needed.

Refine the Product Backlog

It is critical for the agile web development team to estimate the work needed by each issue, and its practicality. Each issue has to be visible in a demo, therefore, plan your backlog by using terms, such as, ‘small, medium, large’, or the Fibonacci numbers (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21…)

Sprint Planning

A sprint is a combination of tasks within a stipulated time frame, which varies from one to four weeks. Essentially, the team peruses the backlog to estimate the work that can be done in one sprint. Also, the number of issues executed by a team in one sprint is called the team’s speed. Therefore, one should always strive to get more issues done in a single sprint.

Make the Work Visible

You can ensure this by using a scrum board with three columns: ‘to do,’ ‘doing’ and ‘done.’ (in agile web development, you can also add a ‘testing’ column)

Daily Stand-Up of Daily Scrum

On a daily basis you organize a quick huddle that will take about 15 minutes to answer the following questions:

What did you do the previous day to help the team accomplish the sprint?

What are you going to do today?

Are there any obstructions in the way of your team to achieve the sprint goals?

Sprint Demo

At the end of every sprint, you conduct a meeting to discuss your achievements with the team.

Sprint Evaluation

After the agile web development team has seen the progress of the sprint, you can arrange a meeting to reflect what has gone well, what could have gone better, and what should be improved in the next sprint.

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